May as well throw in a 'Phoenix' Shield and an Act 2 merc using "Pride' Runeword for an extra +700% or so. Actually make it an Act 2 Nightmare Offensive merc for a higher level Might than u get from Last Wish, then you can use 'Grief' yourself.

Agreed. If all you're going for is 1 hit kills on physical skills, Charge is going to rule the roost. To wit:

slvl 30 Charge (fully Synergized) + slvl 30 Fanaticism + lvl90 Might Merc wielding a perfect Pride (and Arkaine's and Delirium) + Fort + 300 points in Strength wielding a Thunder Maul = 3393% ED. If that Thunder Maul was a perfect Self-Repairing Ethereal Cruel Master's socketed with an Ohm, you're looking at 958.5 average base damage, which would then hit 33,480 average damage while Charging. Throw in a friendly Amplify Damage against a monster with 0% physical resists and we're talking 66,960 average damage per hit on Charge, an attack capable of hitting at 4 or 5 frames per attack against knockback-able enemies. If I actually spent a little bit of time optimizing this gear better (i.e. factoring just how high of a slvl Charge and Fanat I could actually get, and loading up on damage and strength charms), I bet I could break 75,000 physical damage per hit pretty easily. Do some more tweaking, such as adding a second socket to the Thunder Maul, replacing that Ohm with a Lo, and equipping gear to max out the Deadly Strike, and I'm reasonably certain I could take this build to, say, 150,000 damage per.

The thing is, though, that while such damage figures are pretty and fun to talk about, they're impractical. Those characters are all one trick ponies who would get torn apart in Hell because they lack anything remotely resembling a defense.

Besides, as pretty as those numbers are, they really aren't anything in the grand scheme of things. Especially not when I know how to make a character that can actually honestly 1-hit-kill Baal (493,701 HP on Hell Ladder). :azn:

Familiarize yourself with how damage calculations work. 1000% enhanced damage really isn't all that much (a low level dueler Charge Pally can get more than that), and it's pretty much useless with a mediocre damage weapon like Last Wish (things like Grief for one-handed and eBotD for two-handed have much higher weapon damage, which more than makes up for the Might aura from Last Wish).

Absolute max dmg I get with a CS zon (perfect gear, skill shrine, BC, max dmg rolls on all bolts, Baal's lightning resist brought down to -100%) is 378,086, so unless you can take off the remaining 115,615 hp with some combination of poison, open wounds, elemental/physical damage...

Does crushing blow take effect before the bolts do damage? Regardless, I don't see it working.

Since everyone's so curious, I'll let you all in on my little secret. PhatTrumpet has come the closest so far. The answer? Poison Javelin. Yes, you heard me right, Poison Javelin. *THAT* Poison Javelin.

Stop looking at me like that! I haven't lost my mind! I have the numbers to prove it!

Step #1: Equip Dragon Shield, perfect Bramble, 3socket helm stuffed with perfect poison facets, 6socket PB stuffed with perfect poison facets, and Trang's gloves. Get hit until Venom triggers. This will give you a slvl 18 Venom (the second highest a non-Assassin can get, but I'm not calculating with the slvl 23 Venom from poison facets because that only happens when you level up). Slvl 18 Venom will give you 385 damage per .4 seconds, which will get boosted to 847 per 10 frames thanks to your +% Poison Damage gear. That's 84.7 damage per frame, or 2117.5 damage per second.

Step #3: Throw a Poison Javelin until the Javelin actually PHYSICALLY HITS the target (i.e. passes the AR Check and deals physical damage). When the javelin PHYSICALLY HITS, the bitrate from the Venom will *STACK ADDITIVELY* with the bitrate from the Poison Javelin itself, and the poison will last for its entire listed duration. In this case, the 2117.5 Venom-based poison damage per second will combine with the 2048.69 PJ damage per second to give 4166.19 poison damage per second over 104 seconds (433,284 total poison damage).

Step #4: If, after you throw the Poison Javelin but before it hits its target, you hit your gear switchâ€¦ then the poison will be applied with your CURRENT -% poison resistance. In other words, if you cast Lower Resist first, then throw a PJ with your damage rig and switch to your -% Resists weapons while the javelin is in flight, the target will be poisoned at -126% of his original poison resistance. Kaboom.

Alright, now that all that technical mumbo-jumbo is out of the way, letâ€™s run the math here. Hell Baal has 50% poison resistance. With our -% Resist rig, thatâ€™ll get reduced to -76% poison resistance. 433,284 poison damage applied at -76% poison resistance = 762,580 poison damage, WELL over Baalâ€™s 493,701 HP on Hell Ladder.

But why stop at Hell Baal? What about his big brother, UberBaal? Well, UberBaal has 75% poison resist, which gets reduced to -51% poison resist. 433,284 damage applied at -51% resists comes out to 654,259 average poison damage. UberBaal has between 650,000 and 660,000 lifeâ€¦ which means that Poison Javelin is capable of even 1-hit-killing UberBaal, unless you get a really bad damage roll and he gets a really good life roll.

But, heck, why even stop there? You know how I said that it was possible to get a higher slvl of Venom? Well, Poison Facets grant a slvl 23 Venom every time you level up. Letâ€™s say that you save the Ancients Quest so you can level up right before you go into UberTrist. In that case, youâ€™d replace your Dragon shield with a 4PPoisonFacet monarch and kill the Ancients, triggering a level up and giving you a 3090 damage-per-second Venom. That means youâ€™ll be dealing 534,434 damage per hit with Poison Javelin. Letâ€™s say youâ€™re out adventuring and you just happen to run across the DClone. He has 95% poison resistance, which gets reduced to -31%. 534,434 damage @ -31% poison resistance = 700,108 average damage, and DClone only has 642,700 HP. Basically, youâ€™re capable of 1-hit killing anything in the entire game except for Lillith and UberMeph (110% poison resistance), or any unbreakable poison immunes.

As scary as all of these numbers sound, the fact is that Iâ€™m actually *UNDER* estimating the damage values. -% poison resistance will *increase* the duration of poisons. I donâ€™t know exactly how the poison duration increase works (I donâ€™t think itâ€™s a strict 1:1 ratio- i.e. I donâ€™t think -100% poison resist means exactly doubling the poison length), but each of these damage values could, in practice, very easily be a full 50% higher than the numbers Iâ€™m reporting here. Which means that it might be entirely possible to deal over 1,000,000 damage with a single hit.

A couple of notes. I expect people will point out a couple of things thinking I missed them, so let me address those issues pre-emptively.
Q: Why am I wearing +2 Zonskills Hats and Amulets?
A: Because, for some unfathomable reason, +Javelin Skills cannot spawn on either circlets or ammies. +2 Zonskills is the best you can do.

Q: Why doesnâ€™t Venomâ€™s Poison Damage get boosted a second time when I throw my Javelin?
A: Venom is one of the select skills (along with Enchant and the Holy Auras) that gets mastery bonuses applied twiceâ€¦ however, the double-mastery DOES NOT apply to ranged attacks. As a result, both Poison Javelin and Venom get boosted once, but neither gets boosted a second time.

Q: Why donâ€™t you give a Merc an infinity stick?
A: Conviction only affects Lightning, Fire, and Cold resistances. It does nothing to enemy poison resistances.

Q: Why donâ€™t you make friends with a Necromancer to cast a high level Lower Resists for you?
A: Lower Resist wands give -41% enemy resistance. The best Necromancer can only get -69% enemy resistance via Lower Resists. The extra 28% enemy resistance just isnâ€™t worth having a second player in the game, which would boost monster life by 50%.

One last thing- itâ€™s a little-known fact, but damage is actually CAPPED. You can never deal more than 87,040 damage of a certain type- after that, the extra damage rolls over and starts back at zero (so instead of dealing 87,049 damage, youâ€™ll really just deal 9 damage). Because of this, no single attack can possibly deal enough damage to 1-hit kill act bosses unless its Poison damage (because that 87,040 cap for poison is a PER-FRAME cap, so unless your poison deals 2 million damage per second, youâ€™re good), or unless it hits multiple times (such as Charged Strike, Lightning Strike, Charged Bolt, Chain Lightning, Blade Sentry, etc). So it pretty much has to be poison.

Yes, in modded single player. Of course, since I wasn't on ladder, he had fewer hitpoints- "only" 370,275. Since I was just modding a character to test the theory out, I cheated and gave myself a pair of -100% enemy defense small charms to simulate ITD against him (because I didn't feel like throwing 20 times until I landed a physical hit). After that, it was just a matter of TPing back to town and doing some shopping until the world started shaking, then taking the TP back and grabbing the loot.

Yes, in modded single player. Of course, since I wasn't on ladder, he had fewer hitpoints- "only" 370,275. Since I was just modding a character to test the theory out, I cheated and gave myself a pair of -100% enemy defense small charms to simulate ITD against him (because I didn't feel like throwing 20 times until I landed a physical hit). After that, it was just a matter of TPing back to town and doing some shopping until the world started shaking, then taking the TP back and grabbing the loot.

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Sorry, but I should bring this to your attention. The SPF has shown (on numerous occasions) that the Bnet ladder and SP are pretty much the same, in difficulty, AI, drops, 'ladder-only' items, etc. The only things which are different are uber-trist, DC, some bug fixes (Gmerc, cain position apparently, etc.)

Frostburn said:

No insult intended at you MC, but a vast number of b.netters think that SP is not on par with b.net ladder.

This is not the case. The drop rates are the same. The monster AI is the same. The difficulty levels in Normal, NM and Hell are the same. All 'ladder-only' runewords can be enabled in SP (via RWM), and Cube recipes are enabled in SP by default. The only things not possible, afaik, are Uber Diablo and The Pandemonium Event. I would still be playing b.net ladder if SP offered less.

Two questions.
Did you answer that it is possible on ladder to do it??(To much to read sorry)
And how much would it cost to have all those items??

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Of course it's possible on Ladder. The numbers and poisoning mechanism is exactly the same on-ladder as it is off. I haven't tested in on-ladder, because I don't have access to unlimited gear supplies like I do off-ladder. Still, I know that it would work, just like I know that if I hit a 6 hp monster with an 8 hp attack, he's going to die.

As for how much it would cost... it'd probably be a pretty astronomical cost... and you know what? It wouldn't be worth it in the slightest. I mean, you'd have absolutely no defense and no resists. The setup stage would take 5 minutes, and your chance to hit would probably be around 10% (so it would take 10 or more throws before you finally connected). It's such a wildly impractical setup that you'd have to be stupid or suicidal to actually try it in real-world situations. About the only thing it's good for is crazy high-end damage conversations. As far as I know, it's the maximum legitimately achievable damage total in Diablo II. That doesn't make it a good idea.

Basically, it would cost out the back end, you'd be one of the worst PvM and PvP characters ever created, it would take 10 minutes to prebuff (and the prebuff would only last for 3 minutes, anyway), and the damage-per-second would still be pretty darn pathetic. It's not like killing Baal in 100 seconds is going to set any speed records, here. I would advise strongly AGAINST anyone actually trying that out, unless you don't mind burning a ton of wealth to lose your mind from boredom.

Sorry, but I should bring this to your attention. The SPF has shown (on numerous occasions) that the Bnet ladder and SP are pretty much the same, in difficulty, AI, drops, 'ladder-only' items, etc. The only things which are different are uber-trist, DC, some bug fixes (Gmerc, cain position apparently, etc.)

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Monster HPs differ between Ladder and Non-Ladder. I always assumed that SP monster HPs were the same as Non-Ladder (you know, since it wouldn't make sense to screw solo players by beefing up the monsters for no reason like they do on Ladder).

So by the sound of things, you beat a regular ladder Diablo. Can you record/youtube that? Would be a very interesting sight!

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I can't record, and I'm not really interested in downloading software to be able to. Besides, like I said, it would make a pretty boring video. It'd just be me opening a TP in Baal's chamber, then standing around letting monsters hit me until my weapon turns green, then swapping out my gear and going back in with Baal, then throwing a Javelin, then TPing back to town and shopping for two minutes.

Yeah, I know Orphan has tested this too, on ladder if I remembered correctly. Basically you need to trigger the poison with physical damage, and then the venom damage will be applied over the length of poison javalin, causing massive poison damage.

Since everyone's so curious, I'll let you all in on my little secret. PhatTrumpet has come the closest so far. The answer? Poison Javelin. Yes, you heard me right, Poison Javelin. *THAT* Poison Javelin.

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Lol, everytime I read one of your posts about off the wall characters I feel like I need to start a new one or I'll be missing out x_X~

What does he mean in "KO Tyrael"? That's a SP mod that allows you to fight Tyrael?

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There probably is a mod like that, but I don't think that's what he's talking about

Tyrael's generally thought of as a super-cool character; he's a big sparkly angel with pretty wings and an echoing, profound voice. One hit KOing him would indeed be something tremendous. (Although, IIRC - and there's a good chance I'm wrong, as I've only read the dialogue/story in the game once - Tyrael was overpowered on the raid against the Hell Forge...something even a low level character can do)